Part 1: Your Leadership Story

There are three characteristics that are commonly found among truly great leaders:

 Relevance: connecting in a way that signals an understanding of the expectations that the
audience or customer has
 Differentiation: being seen by your audience as genuinely different
 Authenticity: how you choose to lead and communicate in your own way

Additionally, you want people to not only remember your narrative, but also how they felt when they
heard it.

Background: You have been recruited to be the senior vice president of MIRA flags, an international
company with offices in most countries. MIRA is the largest flag maker in the world and sells flags to
local patriots as well to tourists. MIRA also sells other items to wave at sports events and to decorate
on patriotic days. It also sells specialty flags to businesses that supply their own artwork and design.

You are new to the industry, but you will lead the local office in charge of your home country.

Task: You are asked to provide your leadership story to the staff and local board of directors. You
may have met some of them when you were hired, but the hiring process was through the corporate
headquarters in Switzerland, so you don’t know many of the local employees and board members.
Now you need to take a few minutes to tell them about yourself and your background.

Your story should be clear, compelling, concise, cohesive and sticky.

Submission: Please write the talk you will give to your team when you assemble them for the first
time.

You may write your leadership story based on your own background, or you can create a
hypothetical leadership story if you do not want to use your own background, but you must use the
MIRA flag scenario for this exercise.

Pseudonyms: If you wish to remain anonymous and decide to use another name, please use either
“James Timothy Ward” or “Leila Marie Sapul.”

Your leadership story shouldn’t take longer than 3 minutes to tell (maximum of 500 written words).

It should explain how you will help the organization thrive. It can be a combination of some (but due
to time constraints, not all) of the following:

 background
  experience
 skills
 understanding of the industry (even as a newcomer)
 passion for leadership or organizational development

Length: 500 word maximum.

***The leadership story is to be completed for Part 1 of the MIRA Flags scenario.***

The leadership story should include a combination of some (but due to time constraints, not all) of
the following:

 background
 experience
 skills
 understanding of the industry (even as a newcomer)
 passion for leadership or organizational development.

Length: 500 word maximum.

STORY

Dears Colleagues,

I want to present myself so that you can have a better knowledge and understanding about the
person coming as SVP of MIRA flags for your country. In the past several years I have been working
on several positions in the marketing and sales area for several companies that work in the area of
entertainment and requisites associated with it. I am thrilled that I am continuing to work in this field
that I like most and where I have harvested much of my expertise and energy. Even if I am new in
this specific segment I know that with dedication and joint work we can accomplish a lot. What I can
say is that I can offer my humble experience and skills as well as my hart and hardworking character
to bring the organization to the highest levels and accomplish the goals presented to our company.
In the past working environments, we have developed winning culture, culture of understanding and
joint respect together with team spirit. I know that this is a way of progress and accomplishment and
I bet that we can do it together here. I am so excited to meet all of you and to start together the new
journey of success. Be assured that team spirit and dedication will be acknowledged and valued.
We, together, will build culture of openness, sharing and understanding that will hep us to be more
productive and innovative. This vision is achievable and I will put all of my strengths and effort to
realize it with your help. My door is always open and if you have any issue that’s need my attention
be free to come. WE are one team and we will succeed in our goals.
Part 2: Crisis Response Strategy

Not all audiences are created equal, especially in times of crisis. There are certain audiences that
have a much greater impact on the decision-making process, while other audiences have a much
greater impact on public perception.

We need to know three things about these audiences as we are preparing to tell our crisis story:

 Know who you are talking to.

 Know who is talking about you.

 Know your message delivery options.

Background: After you are in the position of senior vice president for six months, the local
newspaper runs a story with this headline: “Patriotic flag maker outsources manufacturing to another
country.”

The report, which points out that your out-of-country partner employs 150 people, is factually
accurate, but when a local labor group tweets its displeasure and other media begin to call for
comments, you have a crisis on your hands.

Submission: Please outline your response to the crisis in the following three parts of your crisis
response strategy, using either paragraphs or bullet points.

1. A crisis response plan that includes:

 specific audiences (e.g., public, customers, employees) that require a response

 responses to specific questions you would likely receive from each audience

 the channel you intend to use

2. Your company’s story:

Write three lines that encapsulate the company story explaining your response to the crisis.

It should be believable and also reasonably equipped to mitigate the crisis. For example, during the
Deepwater Horizon Oil spill, this was the BP story: The breach is serious and powerful. The fix is
complex and very difficult. We (BP) are doing everything we can seal the fissure.

3. Talking points for your media interview:

Write 3-5 brief talking points addressing specific questions from the media.
These talking points should assist in getting the story out of the news cycle.

Remember, as you craft your responses:

 Behave appropriately.

 Be the customer.

Your story has to be about the truth, even if it hurts.

Length: 500 word maximum.

***The crisis response strategy is to be completed for Part 2 of the MIRA Flags scenario.***

The crisis response strategy should include:

A response plan with:

 specific audiences (e.g., public, customers, employees) that require a response

 responses to specific questions

 the channel they intend to use

The company’s story:

 three lines that encapsulate the company story explaining the response to the crisis

Talking points for the media interview:

 3-5 brief talking points addressing specific questions from the media

STORY

A response plan (employees):

Send a Mail/Memo as company letter.

Dear Colleagues,

As we know in the past 3 days there were several roomers in the media regarding possible
outsource of our production to offshore company backed up with the story for hiring of new
employees by our offshore partner. This raised several questions among all of you regarding the
future of our company production, safety of our jobs/salaries and possible layouts. This is
understandable considering the current situation. As you know we have been struggling to satisfy
the demands for the new collection of products the were lunched 3 months ago and in the same
time we are having decreased demand for our traditional products. Having in mind that we have
working in the lunch phase of this collection with our partner they have needed means and setup
that can help us to cover the current demand. In the mean time in the following 3 months we will
work on our mid term strategy concerning the products and production means so that we can
position our self’s as a productive and profitable company. This process will include new
approach on all levels and will require dedication as well as reorganization that at the end will
bring new value for us and the company. We will be transparent in all step of the process and we
will need your support to bring new value for us and the company.

Regards SVP AT.

The company’s story:

As it was mentioned in the media, our offshore company partner employed additional workforce for
new production efforts. This is a fact and it is not connected with any outsource stories that aroused
in the media as a misperception of the situation. In fact, the result is due to our shift in production
strategy and demand for our products especially for the new collection that we launched that is in
high demand and that in order to secure the goods on time we increased our demands to the
partner.

Talking points for the media interview:

We are innovative company that is in constant touch with our customers. Our growth as well as
future depends of hearing and satisfy our customer demands, this means that we need to change
in order to serve them best. This process is normal reflection of the demands of the market and
we need to follow the pace, adapt and bring benefit to customers, company as well as our
employees. Shift of the production strategy will bring benefit to not only for our customers and
company but also for the employees that can focus on providing new value as our company
grows.

Part 3: New Innovation

Leaders need to articulate a vision, based on objectives and strategy, that can be a rallying point for
all. The strategy must include growth to move forward.
When advocating for a new innovation, your story needs to be told to investors and other
stakeholders in a way that will get them to believe in the innovation and work in a way so that all
“own” the vision.

Storytelling allows you to get your ideas across in a narrative that people will remember, but to do
so, you first need to have measurable goals attached.

Background: You have been in the senior vice president position for a year, and one of your
managers approaches you about a new idea. Instead of creating flags and shipping them, customers
can go to the website (which is new for MIRA in your country) and design and 3-D print their own
flags.

Task: You decide this is a good idea and now need to create a story around the new innovation to
convince the decision makers at the Swiss headquarters to provide you with more resources to
follow through on the new innovation.

Submission: Please supply your story in text or in bullet points.

What is your story? Answer why this new innovation should be created and how the innovation might
be of value.

Remember to include at least one measurable objective in the story that you will achieve. For
example: Sell X number of the product in the next fiscal year (an increase of 20% from the current
fiscal year) by opening 2 more stores in a specific region.

This story should also address one or both of the following questions:

 Does the innovation provide a response to a pain point?

 Does the innovation differentiate you from the competition?

Good innovation stories include some emotional aspects in order to better connect with the listener.

Length: 350 word maximum.

***The new innovation story is to be completed for Part 3 of the MIRA Flags scenario.***

The new innovation story should include:

1. Why this new innovation should be created and how the innovation might be of value.

2. At least one measurable objective.

 Does the innovation provide a response to a pain point?

 Does the innovation differentiate you from the competition?

STORY

Dears,

In the past 3 months we have done extensive research of the market requirements for our products.
And as a result, it comes out that customers are not satisfied with having traditional Flag as a product
but certain portion of them have their own desire to art the product that they what to receive. It seems
that this is an opportunity that we need to explore in order to increase our sales figure. When we broth
this idea to our focus group it was clear that they are satisfied with the approach and 20 – 30% of them
were immediately interested in trial of this new approach of the product. This approach needs acquiring
new product line that is capable of producing self-designed 3D flag that can be submitted and designed
via our company web sites. After that printed flags will be directly shipped to the customers. This
approach can bring increase of our profit by 20 % and will improve our stock production having in mind
that we will produce already soled products that do not need to be stocked. This will improve overall
value of the company having in mind that we will deal with over excessive production and stock
handling. This approach is way ahead of our competition because we will include personal customized
touch of our products for our customer an will open space for new purchases.